Victoria's Secret is central Ohio's most-valuable brand

Victoria's Secret is central Ohio's most valuable brand — and the second-most valuable brand in Ohio — a new ranking shows.

The lingerie chain, part of Columbus-based L Brands, has a brand value of $6.3 billion, up from $5.8 billion last year, according to international marketing firm Brand Finance. Victoria's Secret was 94th on the Brand Finance U.S. 500 list.

Pantene, the hair-care brand owned by Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble, was deemed the most valuable brand in Ohio, with a brand value of $8.3 billion, up from $4.8 billion last year. It was 73rd on the list.

Every year, the Brand Finance evaluates thousands of brands to determine the most powerful and the most valuable by country, by industry and against all other brands worldwide.

Brand value is calculated by determining what a company would be willing to pay to license its brand if it did not own it. This approach involves estimating the future revenue attributable to a brand and calculating a royalty rate that would be charged for its use.

Two other central Ohio-based brands made the list.

• Cardinal Health was 247th out of 500, with a total value of $2.9 billion, up from $2 billion last year.

• Bath & Body Works, also part of L Brands, was 486th, with a total value of $1.3 billion. The home fragrance brand was not on the list last year.

The list includes 28 Ohio-based brands, which had a combined value of $84.5 billion, putting Ohio in fifth place among states. Ten of the 28 brands are owned by Procter & Gamble.

Some local brands with familiar names — such as Big Lots, Wendy's, Abercrombie & Fitch and Nationwide — did not make the cut.

In the case of Big Lots and Abercrombie, they are facing challenges in the competitive retail market.

Other fast-food chains — including McDonald’s, KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Subway and Domino’s — made the list of 500 most-valuable brands but fell in value because of those challenges.

As for Nationwide, because it is not a publicly traded company, financial information is not available in the areas that Brand Finance uses to calculate its rankings.

The top brand in the nation and the world was Google, with a value of $109.5 billion, the report said. Apple, which had been crowned the world's most-valuable brand for five consecutive years, dropped to second with a value of $107.1 billion.